"You will save the Quaggi," cried Madame, "but you will let us die?"
"I, Madame?" Questioner"s eyebrows rose. "I would not think of such a thing. I will simply recommend that mankind not continue on Newholme past the lives of those now living. Even our earliest espousers of human rights limit them to life, liberty, and the pursuit of satisfactions. They do not guarantee posterity or immortality."
Madame turned away to hide her face. "How long do we have ... before we must go into that place?"
"Until the last of these monsters have been absorbed. By then, it will be day. The moons collect near noon, so says the Corojum. All six of the larger ones will be more or less in line with the sun; there will be darkness at noon; we will have one dilly of an eclipse."
Madame returned to the Hags to tell them brokenly what Questioner had said. They stood where they were, watching. There was nothing else they could do.
Slightly above them on the road, Ashes looked down on the observers and called his sons" attention to them.
"That"s Mouche over in those rocks," said Bane, outraged. "What"s he doing here?"
"And there"s that Questioner thing," said Dyre. "And there"s ol" Simon and Madame."
"Who? two, three, four," muttered Ashes. "Simon? two, three four."
"Just somebody from House Genevois," muttered Bane, embarra.s.sed to see Mouche looking up at Ashes"s nakedness. "Why"d you hafta take your clothes off?"
Ashes ignored him. Any clothing worn by the Wilderneers had been stripped away. The rags lay along the descending path. The sight of Mouche made up Bane"s mind for him, and he edged away from Ashes, stepped over the edge of the path behind a large boulder, and waited there while the procession pa.s.sed him by. He did not notice that Mouche and Ornery, Ellin and Bao had also slipped away to disappear along the boulder-strewn slope that led down to the pond.
Bane heard wings and looked up. Webwings dropped onto the concealing rock and perched there. "What you waitin" for, boy?"
"I think all you folks should go in first," said Bane carefully. "Cause you"ve already been in once. Then Dyre and me, because it"ll be our first time."
"Oh, we"re gonna get all refurbished, we are. Been kind of shabby, lately. You noticed that? Kind of shabby. Kind of worn. But we"ll come out lovely, we will." Webwings almost purred. "Shiny. Like stars. Just lately, I"ve been thinkin" about it. All of us have. Hughy Huge. He told me he was gonna be a star."
"That"s right," said Bane. "I"m sure of it."
Webwings spread his wings, the spiders beneath them quivering in antic.i.p.ation. He launched himself into the air, circling upward, then from the height fell like an arrow, making scarcely a splash as he slipped into the pond and was gone.
There were only a dozen or so monsters remaining. Below Bane, on the switchback path, Dyre was straggling along at Ashes"s heels. Bane whistled softly. Dyre looked up, saw him, looked back at Ashes, then darted upward, off the path to make his way upward toward Bane. They watched as their father marched into the Fauxi-dizalonz without a backward glance, moving briskly forward until even the top of his head had disappeared.
The few Wilderneers who had been behind him finished their march, their voices growing weaker, their very substance seeming to lose definition. The tunneler levees had pulled back as the liquid level rose, and were finally removed altogether when the turbid pond filled the caldera to the very foot of the road. The surface was barely riffled, but the depths were full of dark shadows and stringy shapes that writhed like leeches. The shapes swam just under the surface until early light drove them into the depths. As the sun came higher, shining more directly into the caldera, the pond began to clear, and with torturous slowness it continued clearing until, when the sun was high, it shone at last with the bright, emerald green they had all seen at first.
The world began to move beneath them, a different movement than any they had felt heretofore, a pounding, like a heart beating far beneath them.
Across the caldera from where they stood a great slot opened in the rocky wall and from it came the great voice of Bofusdiaga, making the caldera shudder as it cried, "Now!"
Madame straggled toward the steep path, with the two Hags at her heels, like naughty children, plodding toward punishment.
The Questioner approached them. "Are you ready?" she asked.
"You"re going down there with us?" asked Onsofruct angrily. "Can"t you rely on our word? We have said we will do it. We will."
"Put it down to curiosity," Questioner said. "It is one of my tasks to gather information, and how this will be accomplished should be very informative."
They plodded slowly down the path to the point where it disappeared under the emerald surface, then simply stood, unmoving, staring into the depths.
"I"m frightened," said D"Jevier apologetically. "I"m scared silly."
"Don"t stand here and exacerbate your fear," suggested Questioner. "Just take a deep breath and dive."
"No," said Mouche.
They turned. Mouche was close behind them, with Ornery, Ellin and Bao, and the Timmy with emerald hair.
"What do you mean, no?" asked Questioner, annoyed.
Mouche reached out to touch her shoulder, then moved to do the same to Madame. "I mean these women are unfitted for this task. Madame here would do it out of duty, but as she herself has taught us, duty is never enough. The Hags do it out of some other emotion. Whatever it is, it is inappropriate. You are all too much what you are. Too set into your ident.i.ties. Timmy tells us you cannot do what is needed."
"And you can?"
He grinned at her. "Remember your lectures, Madame. You told us we had only to set our minds on our Hagions. So, I serve the Hagion by serving the Quaggima, by serving the creatures of this world. You told us we are all caught up in serving this through serving that. Nothing, you said, is ever quite clear or direct in this world, and love is the most unclear and indirect of all."
"And does love come into it?" whispered Madame.
"Flowing Green says it must, though she uses other words for it. Otherwise, our design will be faulty, our execution weak, our concepts flawed. To use your words again, Madame."
They did not know what to say, Questioner least of all, and Mouche gave them no time to come up with something apposite. He leapt past them, the others following, like creatures riding a wave of inevitability. In a moment they were gone, vanished, diving quickly, disappearing in the depths.
For one moment, nothing at all seemed to happen. The pond sparkled innocently in the sun, throwing bits of broken sunlight into their faces. Full of questions and expostulations, Calvy and Simon scrambled down from the ledge to join the others; the Corojum appeared out of nowhere; and from somewhere up the slope, Timmys began to sing a hymn to light.
The world shook again, and again, a stronger beat than before. Tunnelers emerged from various caves and began digging at one side of the Fauxi-dizalonz.
Questioner asked, "What are they doing?"
"Doing what must be done," said the Corojum. "And when that happens, you need to be away from here."
"Away?" asked Calvy. "Where?"
"Away from this place. High up, away from the falling rocks. Up on the road, maybe. All of you."
"I don"t want to leave him," cried Simon. "Mouche, I mean. He"s in ... in there somewhere."
"Mouchidi isn"t in there. You couldn"t help him if he were, and you are in danger," said the Corojum. "Bofusdiaga says you are to go."
Calvy said, "I want to watch what happens in the other chasm."
"Have you no shame?" Onsofruct challenged him. "Here are persons making great sacrifice for our sakes, and all you think of is lechery!"
"Oh, it is more than lechery, Revered Hag," said Calvy, irrepressibly. "The road starts up there on the ledge, where Questioner"s people are waiting. From up there, we can see down into the other side." He turned to the Corojum. "Can we wait up there?"
Corojum glared at him wordlessly. "Mankinds can be trivial. I have said so to Bofusdiaga, many times."
"Sorry," Simon murmured. "But I"m with Calvy. I intend to see what goes on."
"Corojum," cried Madame. "Was that Timmy the one who ... who Mouche was much interested in?"
"Flowing Green," said Corojum. "Tim is ... it is a new kind of Timmy, made of Mouche"s blood and Kaorugi"s mind. Flowing Green has watched Mouchidi forever from the walls. And when he came to House Genevois, the Timmys opened the way into the walls, and they tempted him in, and he watched Flowing Green from there. Both, watching one another. All these last years of his life, his own tim has been setting tim"s voice into him, setting tim"s own dance into him, and he has some of tim"s substance in him, too. Some of Kaorugi, inside Mouche.
"Together we have thought, perhaps Mouchidi will be the one. Now tim has lured him or taught him to do this thing, and he has convinced Ellin, and Bao has convinced Ornery...."
"What is this thing?" demanded Questioner, almost angrily.
"... to do this thing as Bofusdiaga did it," whispered the Corojum. "For they," he indicated the Hags with a jerk of his head, "no, they cannot."
Onsofruct burst into tears.
"We probably cannot," said D"Jevier, shuddering. "The Hagions know I"m not fit for martyrdom! I"m not pure enough, not resolute enough, not inspired enough. I haven"t been pure since childhood, nor resolute except in duty, nor inspired recently at all. Except now and then by hope, I suppose. We are only weary old women, trying to do the best we can. Hush now, Onsy. Come, Madame, Calvy, Simon. Let us get out of the way of this great work and wait to see what happens."
60.
Many Moons.
Five moons were in the sky, two west of the sun, seeming to linger in place, and three coming from other directions, moving swiftly, ever closer. The world shook and shook again. Stones fell. Distant peaks shivered and danced. The sixth moon, said Questioner, was actually hidden in the sun"s radiance and would shortly begin to obscure it. While the people held on, trying to anchor themselves on the high ledge, the tunnelers continued their frantic digging between the south end of the Fauxi-dizalonz and the opening into the Quaggima"s crater. Soon it was apparent they were cutting a trench to join caldera to chasm, leaving only a narrow wall of soil and rock to hold the Fauxi-dizalonz in place.
Meantime, Timmys ran here and there, carrying, fetching, coming, going. As the moons crept closer to one another, Timmys poured by the hundreds down onto the track that led into Quaggima"s crater, ma.s.sing to either side of the s.p.a.ce where the new trench would breach the wall.
"What is Bofusdiaga going to do?" asked Calvy. "Drain the pond into the other crater?"
"It looks very much like it," said Questioner. "Furthermore, it seems to be putting every resource it has into the job."
"Look," cried D"Jevier, pointing upward with a hand that shuddered with each pulse of the world. "Two moons across the sun!"
There were two, one on the leading side, the other on the following. From below the sun, a third moon climbed toward it.
"I saw those moons when this world was young," said Questioner to Calvy, in a didactic tone. "I obtained a recording of the birth of this system. All these moons make it a very complex and interesting system."
"At the moment," said Calvy, "I refuse to be interested. I would trade all of them gladly for a moonless night with no tides."
"Don"t you think Mouche and his friends will be successful?"
Calvy contorted his face into a mocking grimace. "If you want the truth, Questioner, I don"t know what success amounts to. My idea of success would be to be home, with Carezza and my children. Mouche seems to intend a great deal more than that, though I"m d.a.m.ned if I know what."
Beneath them, the thudding of the world built in volume and force. This was nothing like the tremors they had felt in the past. This was purposeful, powerful, a recurrent jar that allowed only a moment for the previous blow to reverberate into silence before striking again. As though stirred by the sound, the Fauxi-dizalonz began to boil, sending up fogs and fumes, spirals of mist, whirlwinds of foam, at first in random fashion, then gathering into one shadow that darkened beneath the waters. A being was growing there. Only one. And they could not see what it was like.
Within the green, an acc.u.mulation. Star-shaped, it spun slowly in the flow, a mindfulness at each point, each point a sense of awareness. Here. Now. I. Am. Here. Now. They. Are. Here. Now. We.
Reaching out, left and right, thought touched thought. We. I. We. I. Across, left and right, thought touched thought. We. I. You. We. I. You. Each linked to each, lines of a.s.sociation spreading to make a glowing star in a shining pentacle, and at the center, a smaller pentacle where something new began to grow.
At four of the points, persons fought to reclaim themselves, as drowning men gasp for air, and Flowing Green sang to them.
"Dissolve," it sang to Ellin. "Into the pattern, into the music, just dissolve. Skein away like melting sugar. Become one with the patterns on the wall, in peace, in quiet, as if you were in Mama One"s lap once more...."
"Dissolve," it said to Bao. "Leave all concerns behind. There is nothing here but pleasure. Let it all go, parents, expectations, worries, all are fading. Let them go. ..."
"Dissolve," it said to Mouche. "Into the sea, Mouche. Into the liquid roaming, the cry of the waterkeens, into the slosh and swim of the sea. ..."
"Dissolve," it said to Ornery. "Lay death away, lay pain away, your people are here, renewed, part of everything, and you will rejoin. ..."
"Dissolve," it said to itself. "Become what you covet becoming, tim-tim. Be one with him, with them, with all."
They loosened. They gave up being. They joined and re-became, a new thing. A stronger thing. A thing that knew more than any one of them had supposed it was possible to know.
The new thing heard a calling. "Oh, I long, I long, I long. I am alone, alone, alone. Death comes on me, time runs away, pain awaits, fire awaits, and I am alone, alone, alone."
A certain mindfulness reminded: Do not say don"t be silly. Say, instead, of course, I know, I understand. Do not go too softly. Go strongly, as one who is perilous and brave. Do not say don"t be silly. Say, instead, of course, I know, I understand. Do not go too softly. Go strongly, as one who is perilous and brave.
A certain mindfulness said: Do not smell of this world, but of the vast sea, the s.p.a.ces between the stars. Do not smell of this world, but of the vast sea, the s.p.a.ces between the stars.
A certain mindfulness said: Do not dance as a woman would dance, as a man would dance, as legs would dance, but as wings would dance, as these two would dance if they were lovers making a promise that would echo among the galaxies. Do not dance as a woman would dance, as a man would dance, as legs would dance, but as wings would dance, as these two would dance if they were lovers making a promise that would echo among the galaxies.
Do not be bound by gravity, for we will swim weightless within this liquid world. Do not be bound by breath, for we need not breathe, or by thought, for we need not think. Here is only sensation and the need for joy....
The being began to form. Two points joining two others to make wings. One point to make a head containing eyes to perceive light and images. Organs to perceive and make audible signals. Organs to create and perceive heat. Organs to compute and calculate. Organs to encompa.s.s and caress.
"I know where it is," it said to Kaorugi. "I hear it calling. I feel its longing. I am ready to go."
"Not just yet," said Kaorugi. "You must grow. Add to yourself. Acc.u.mulate. Before you go, you must be larger, much larger."
"Where am I?" a certain mindfulness wondered, in momentary panic.
"Here, Mouchidi," whispered Flowing Green. "Don"t worry."
"I don"t know enough to do this."
"You don"t. We do. And Kaorugi has figured it out. Seeing our shape, he is understanding what it is for."
"I am dancing ..." Ellin thought.
"I am a woman, dancing ..." Bao thought.
"I am having a great adventure," Ornery told herself.
"Let me go," thought Mouche. "I can"t take me with me. I"ll just have to let me go...."
The form solidified, still growing. The wings began to toughen, their great spars folding and unfolding.
"Let me go." A fading thought.
"Mouche?" whispered Kaorugi. "Ellin Voy? Gandro Bao? Ornery Bastable?"